This week's guest is recently retired educator and union leader from suburban Detroit, Tony Lucchi. As we learn about Tony's journey as a sports fan we discover it was a visit to his Aunt Pat and Uncle's Bill's house that first exposed Tony to sports. In this case, a Detroit Tigers' broadcast on a family radio. And, like may kids his age during that era, the exposure to baseball on the radio led to the request for a transistor radio as a gift.
Later, we learn it was Tony's mom, who worked for Henry Ford Hospital, who secured tickets to a game at Tigers' Stadium for she, Tony, and his aunt and uncle to attend. The specifics are fuzzy, but he remembers the opponent that day being the Kansas City Royals (likely during their expansion season).
Tony chats it up about his love of the Tigers, Detroit Lions, Detroit Pistons, and the University of South Carolina Gamecocks ... wait, what? Yep, he attended grad school in Columbia, SC, durign the late 1980s. We also discuss the prospects for the Lions this upcoming season (Spoiler: He's a believer), his time Los Angeles, what's on his sports bucket list, and, a late-episode riff on what does and does not qualify as a sport (Spoiler: He's not pro curling as a sport).
